Reviews & Ratings for
The Terror Beneath the Sea More at IMDbPro »Kaitei daisensô (original title)

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Beware the Processed Fishmen of the Sea, 5 September 2007

Author: Bogmeister from United States

MASTER PLAN: convert people into sexless fishmen, as prep for underwater kingdom and so on. Described as a Saturday matinée treat, this has elements of a James Bond thriller combined with Japanese Sci-fi of the sixties. Indeed, this begins as a typical Bondian teaser on a submarine, with the Navy testing a new kind of torpedo. Although it's a Japanese production, most of the cast is Caucasian, with the notable exception of Sonny Chiba. He and cute blonde Peggy Neal play a couple of intrepid journalists who go scuba diving in the wrong area. They're scared off by a fishman, a poor cousin of "The Creature From the Black Lagoon," but lose the photographic evidence. Hence, being reporters, they go back and soon venture into the wrong caves, where there are now a lot of fishmen. It's all just a prelude to the reveal of an undersea installation (3,000 feet below!) headed by a mad scientist who has perfected the 'processed man' formula & procedure - the method by which people are turned into fish people (or, 'water cyborgs,' as the gloating mad doc calls them).

Most of this is harmless fun, with most of the actors, perhaps due to poor dubbing, seriously overacting; a lot of the dialog is shouted when they should be speaking in a normal manner. This is especially evident with the two navy commanders, who always seem way over excitable. The mad scientist is strictly out of the 'sneering, cackling school' of nutty villains. The actress Neal also tends to scream or whimper during most of her scenes. Of course, when we get to that eerie conversion process, which is demonstrated slowly to the reporters before they themselves are victimized by it, one can scarcely blame her. This is where it gets a little creepy, another example of the Japanese preoccupation with mutating the human body in film. The pace is a little slow in the first half, especially with all the underwater scenes, but there's lot of action towards the climax, with the Navy submarine attacking and all hell breaking loose as the fishmen go out of control. The FX are low budget and the fishmen suits are not very convincing. Chiba makes a pretty good leading man here, a full 8 years before his famous "Street Fighter" role, though don't expect the same fighting ability from him here. Hero:6 Villains:5 Femme:5 Henchmen:4 Fights:5 Stunts/Chases:5 Gadgets:5 Machines:6 Locations:5 Pace:5 overall:5

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
A monster film mostly for young kids and bad film fans., 24 June 2009

Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

Sadly, before Sonny Chiba made the wonderful martial arts films that made him so famous throughout the world, he starred in a bazillion films--including some real turkeys like INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN (in the bottom 100 films on IMDb). Despite a fairly respectable current score of 5.5 on IMDb, TERROR BENEATH THE SEA is also one of these early bad films. Now it isn't nearly as terrible as INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN (but what is?!), it's still mighty bad and a film only for kids and the curious.

The film involves Chiba and a cast of Westerners and Japanese investigating some strange creatures in the ocean. They look like a poor man's version of the Creature from CREATURE OF THE BLACK LAGOON--rubber body suits painted silver with putty-like faces. It turns out that they are the creation of a mad megalomaniac (Dr. Moore) who has learned to change humans into practically anything he'd like. Using a mind control device, these cheesy monsters do his bidding. And where does this crazed genius live? Yep, 3000 feet under the ocean--and it's up to Chiba and the US Navy to stop this crazy and his freaky friends. They never really explain how the subs are able to go that deep and Chiba's stupid red-headed sidekick wants to swim from there to the surface (they'd be crushed like grapes by the pressure almost immediately). Maybe originally they mean 300 feet and it was mis-dubbed!

The film looks very Japanese when it comes to the underwater battles and sub. There are lots of fires and explosions(!) under water and much of it looks really, really cheap--like they were created by someone who built the cities for the Godzilla films. Oddly, despite these silly special effects, some of the underwater diving scenes were very well done and filmed well and the color throughout the film was lovely--very vivid and clean. The costumes also aren't bad (other than the silver-suited freaks).

The film is entertaining silliness that bad movie fans and kids will like, but I can't imagine anyone else sitting through this odd film. Well,...at least it IS different!

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Early Sonny Chiba, 8 November 2005

Author: bensonmum2 from Tennessee

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

When two reporters investigate the strange occurrences during a Navy submarine test, they become the prisoners of a strange underwater race of beings. They are taken to a secret laboratory where they discover a mad scientist who is using these creatures in his plot to take over the world. The reporters must free themselves and save the world.

The movie stars a very young Sonny Chiba as one of the reporters. While he is a far cry from the butt-kicking machine he would later become, his screen presence is undeniable. The other reporter is played by Peggy Neal. God, is there a more annoying woman on the planet. The seaweed in the movie had more talent.

While the movie features a good number of kitschy moments (the monsters being the prime example), overall it's far too slow for me to completely endorse. There are too many scenes of the two reporters swimming underwater or investigating the secret lab where literally nothing happens. The pair just wander around doing nothing. A little more action would have made things much better.

6 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
The Streetfighter Vs. The Creature from the Black Lagoon., 17 January 2004

Author: Ralph R. (geek3866) from San Francisco

Okay Japanese rubber suit/monster flick. Mad scientist plans to rule the world with his fishmen/water cyborgs from his underwater base. Sonny Chiba in an early role is the hero and American Peggy Neal plays the girl in trouble. Best viewed late at night with Attack of the Mushroom People.

1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
The Terror beneath the Pain Barrier, 1 October 2007

Author: Great-Cthulhu from Germany

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

THIS MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS… …even when this little movie has not much of a narrative to give away.

Now, I've seen quite some rubber-suit monster, creature from wherever and suchlike, but man, this one really is boring. It even succeeds in being so bad that it's "good" – which makes most of these movies fun to watch. But "The Terror beneath the Sea" lacks any suspense, storytelling devices or actors-not-being-a-cardboard figure.

The story is rather cheap, maybe even for a flick like this one, but hey, this would have not made the movie bad as such – most old Sci-Fi flicks and films like this have a very bad narrative and still are entertaining. The "story" of this movie has been written down by some other guys here all over the page, so I won't sum it up again, but rather question some points… Apart from dragging on without building up any suspense or anything story-like beyond "now this is a master plan to conquer the world that did not work in some other 30+ movies – they surely botch this one", the characters are all totally stupid (Chiba's Ken being the only one hardly managing to be likable). Like the bad guy, I forgot his name, is very evil indeed. Not only does he wear menacing sun-glasses he also sneers all the time, gives us some throaty laughter and comes over with the usual wanna-be World Dominator one-liners. I mean come on, sun-glasses in an underwater city? Where they afraid to make the movie to cheese if they would have given him a cool mask like Dr. Doom from 10,000 fathoms? Anyway, he is a total nut-case – in fact, he never does anything but point out his glorious plan, while the work is done by his doctors-turned-henchmen. In the end he can't control his own "Water-Cyborgs" (bad looking rip-off's from the Creature from the Black Lagoon) and makes a run for it. Of course he is stopped by Chiba's hero, but only after Mr. Villain fails to shoot him at point blank range.

One thing I found quiet amusing was the shrieking and whining of Peggy Neal's Jenny, who is so occupied with her looks (they get a little bit mutated themselves), that if she survives the movie, she will surely commit suicide when she gets some wrinkles from age.

Generally, what is this thing with the mutations anyway? The "stop-motion" scenes with some other guy being transformed into a hideous Water-Cyborg (means looking ridiculous and being controlled by a Work/Fight/Stop dial in the villain's HQ) looks like they did put butter or curd onto the poor guy to simulate a "mutated skin". Then they went into an aliment-frenzy and threw all other stuff onto him – all which looks like some sort of milk produce. At last they put on some chips (posing as scales) and, hey, here's your average fish soldier.

There are also some guys from the US Navy, who are first reluctant to do anything, then see their wrongs and are over-anxious to to something and then come up with doing nothing more than blasting the villain's underwater city to kingdom come. They by the way overact so completely, and are so badly dubbed that it hurts – but, as I said, they don't do much for the sake of the narrative.

Overall, what could have been a standard Sci-Fi fun flick with some silly fun is sadly completely sub-standard and just rolls along rather drowsy. And the ending scene is so completely terrible "a little laugh at the end" stuff with yet another attempt to break the sonic barrier of cheesiness that you are really happy that this has finally dragged itself to it's end.

Stay with "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" or "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" if you want some underwater monsters with style.

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